New 5E campaign forming (And something of interest to anyone LFG or LFP in future)

[Mad Nomad]

I am planning to start 1 or 2 5E campaigns in the near future and am looking for players.
However, rather than proposing what, when, and how we'd play up front, I'd like to first take stock of who's interested in a 5E campaign, when they can play, and what/how they want to play. To do this, I've created a survey for people to use to apply to the campaign.

This survey application will do 4 things.

1. Help me take stock of the available players, their preferences and availability, and design a game that fits them (within my own area of comfort of course)

2. Help me recruit those players who I feel will be the best fit for my game and who best fit with each other as well.

Those 2 things are all I need to move forward with my campaign. However, it may also achieve 2 bonus things.

3. If I get a lot of applications this could potentially help players find other players and GMs that they fit well with, even if they don't fit into my particular game. For example, if 5 people have similar times and preferences that don't fit mine, but do fit some other GMs, I could put them all in touch. Once I finish my recruitment I will figure out the best way to make this available. (Only if you give me permission to do so of course, there is an opt out in the survey)

4. Lastly, this might give us a little glimpse into what the preferred play styles for 5E Fantasy grounds players are. Aren't you a bit curious? Are you the odd ball or does your style of play fit the masses?

Back to my actual campaign:
Because I will be using the survey data to decide on many aspects of the campaign I can't say much about what my campaign will be or how it will work yet, but I can say it will most likely be during the US weekday evenings. And it will be 5e based. However, for reasons 3 and 4 above, I highly encourage anyone and everyone who is currently or might soon be interested in joining a 5E campaign to fill out the survey.

Please do not PM me or reply below with your interest to join. Just fill out the survey application.
Once I have a better idea of the campaign details I'll reach out to appropriate applicants to see if they are still interested and I will make the info available to others to do matchmaking.

Apply / Take the Survey
https://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/2718121/FG-Campaign-Recruitment

[sasigns]

Filled out :)

[SMuffatti]

Filled out as well.

[Carog the Fat]

also filled out i hope you get enough ppayers an kudos for the attempt to organise things

[Reese_Kracus]

Filled out

[Mad Nomad]

Already a good number of people filled it out. Cool to see this data. Seems like there is a decent chance this will be able to be useful to more than my campaign. Already see some people have indicated they would GM if matched with the right group of people.

[Sujami]

Filled out survey, sounds cool!

[Mixylplyx]

Filled out as well. I'd like to see something like this done by FG itself.

[Rilmarion]

Filed out

[Rimne]

That was a really good survy. Kudos,

[Dockelley113]

Filed out the survey.

[Bloody_Murphy_X]

Great idea.

Survey completed.

[BDaniel]

Rounds complete..end of mission. (Survey complete)

[Mad Nomad]

Thank you guys for all the applications/survey responses so far. It is some very interesting data. I've started recruitment based on the data but despite having nearly 35 applicants, there's still not a 100% cohesive party based on questions I asked. Guess it goes to show how everyone has a different style and set of preferences.

I will share the anonymous results in case anyone is curious. I had limited ability to change the display format for the data representation on some questions, so some are not ideal, but I do have the raw data which I will ultimately be able to make available to GMs later. If you have not yet applied / filled out the survey, please feel free to still do so.

https://data.surveygizmo.com/r/447947_5715994ebc25a3.03514309

Out of the limited sample size, I did draw some conclusions. Female RPGers really are super rate (which I am sure is no surprise), we are older than I expected, we don't like 4e much, we like voice based games, and we think 4 - 5 hours once a week is the sweet spot for a campaign.

[bmilley]

Thorough and intelligent survey dereks. Now, if only those posting to the game calendar would take thirty seconds to list their preferred game times and the no-go times it would make applying easier.

[damned]

The responses to this question say a lot:

17. Are you a GM looking for players now or in near future? Or would you consider GMing if you have the right group of players?

Yes: 22.9%
No: 77.1%

I wonder WHAT the reasons are that players answer in this way?

[Nulk]

Well done, this could almost be a Census of the active community.

and you can add another .1 to the yes's in Q17 there damned.

[Snoffo]

"Looking at the results"

Awwww!!! I knew there weren't that many people who could play "standard" European time. Well, at least it seems so, since there are so few within that timezone.

[sasigns]

Well I know for me it is total lack of experience. I have never DMed before and I am just now trying to get into VTT so I think that would just add to the learning curve

[damned]

"Looking at the results"

Awwww!!! I knew there weren't that many people who could play "standard" European time. Well, at least it seems so, since there are so few within that timezone.

This is a tiny snapshot by 40 players. While it is indicative (eg most players are from the North American continent) it is by no means the full picture.
One challenge that European players face is that for most of you English is not your Primary language and so game discussion and setup often happens on more local (and not FG specific) forums in your own languages.
There are plenty of Euro players around however.

[damned]

Well I know for me it is total lack of experience. I have never DMed before and I am just now trying to get into VTT so I think that would just add to the learning curve

Which is perfectly fair.
Im not having a go at anyone but I do think that many of the more experienced players should consider giving the GM role a go...

[BDaniel]

Damned,
I will admit I answered "No" to question 17. My reasoning is I am new to FG and D&D 5E. I haven't played in decades. In my reasoning a good DM/GM must be proficient in the use of the VTT and gaming system. Both of which I am not. This doesn't preclude me doing so in the future, just not at this time or near future.

[BDaniel]

I agree wholeheartedly. DM/GM ing opens a whole new experience. It also let you get your Dr. Evil hat out and create some diabolical campaigns.

[Snoffo]

This is a tiny snapshot by 40 players. While it is indicative (eg most players are from the North American continent) it is by no means the full picture.
One challenge that European players face is that for most of you English is not your Primary language and so game discussion and setup often happens on more local (and not FG specific) forums in your own languages.
There are plenty of Euro players around however.

Heh.

Tend to forget that there are several non English speaking European countries, where English isn't taught, or spoken often enough, so that they can both speak and write English good enough for playing a role-playing game. For us Scandinavians however, English is generally done to such a degree, that I do not see a language barrier. At least not in my case.

Having said that, I am still a bit baffled that Americans seems to dominate to such a degree (if you can take that survey as an indicator). It is not like roleplaying is that much smaler here... right. At least not in Norway. Still, as you say, there are still plenty of Europeans to go around, not to mention I am already playing in one game :)

[Mad Nomad]

I also put this in my original post. Which in retrospect I wish I didn't.

Back to my actual campaign:
Because I will be using the survey data to decide on many aspects of the campaign I can't say much about what my campaign will be or how it will work yet, but I can say it will most likely be during the US weekday evenings. And it will be 5e based. However, for reasons 3 and 4 above, I highly encourage anyone and everyone who is currently or might soon be interested in joining a 5E campaign to fill out the survey.

I suspect many people who knew they could not play US weeknight evenings didn't bother.

[Rimne]

I also put this in my original post. Which in retrospect I wish I didn't.

Back to my actual campaign:
Because I will be using the survey data to decide on many aspects of the campaign I can't say much about what my campaign will be or how it will work yet, but I can say it will most likely be during the US weekday evenings. And it will be 5e based. However, for reasons 3 and 4 above, I highly encourage anyone and everyone who is currently or might soon be interested in joining a 5E campaign to fill out the survey.

I suspect many people who knew they could not play US weeknight evenings didn't bother.

I'm thinking,
There are several severe sources of error, if you're looking for a statistical representation of the player base. For one, filling out a survy as part of joining a game. Or filling out a survy in the context of FG at all. In a social context doing survies in a social enviornment such as this can be considered unappropriate, and going through with it may well be considered immature behaviour by some(many?). The personality of players who would avoid any survy in this context could well tie in with some of the questions the survy poses.

I'm thinking the survy is good for what you said it was, a tool to find ppl who'd play well together (given you know something about what makes ppl play well together, which won't always be very obvious).

Just my thoughts on the matter,

[PhorgottenSon]

I'm thinking,
There are several severe sources of error, if you're looking for a statistical representation of the player base. For one, filling out a survy as part of joining a game. Or filling out a survy in the context of FG at all. In a social context doing survies in a social enviornment such as this can be considered unappropriate, and going through with it may well be considered immature behaviour by some(many?). The personality of players who would avoid any survy in this context could well tie in with some of the questions the survy poses.

I'm thinking the survy is good for what you said it was, a tool to find ppl who'd play well together (given you know something about what makes ppl play well together, which won't always be very obvious).

Just my thoughts on the matter,

I have to completely disagree with everything you mentioned in that first paragraph, maybe it is a cultural thing. Now, this survey is not a scientific one and of course does not accurately map the entirety of the FG population, but that doesn't mean the data is useless. I have every reason to believe the majority of those that did fill out this survey did so in earnest giving legitimate answers to these questions. If this data helps people find a game and have fun, then it has helped make the world a better place, if only by a tiny amount.

[MakeShiftDie]

filled out, would love to join!

[Mad Nomad]

Thanks for everyone who filled out the survey. We hit 60 people so I figured that's a good place to call it. I updated the report to share the anonymous data and I have emailed the player data for all who asked me to do so to GMs who indicated they were interested in getting the results.
Enjoy. Hopefully it helps some people find some games.
On which note, I wouldn't mind joining a weeknight campaign if my preferences align with someones game :)

Updated Survey report: https://data.surveygizmo.com/r/447947_5715994ebc25a3.03514309

And because I didn't have control over the report format, one thing that is left out in report that is probably one of the most important/interesting elements are the answers for % RP, vs combat vs puzzle. So here's some supplemental info on that.
40/40/20 seems to be the most common, which I suppose is not very surprising.

Desired RP%
Value Frequency Frequency %
20 2 3.51
25 4 7.02
30 2 3.51
33 3 5.26
33.3 2 3.51
33.333 1 1.75
34 3 5.26
35 1 1.75
40 20 35.09
42 1 1.75
42.5 2 3.51
45 2 3.51
48 1 1.75
50 8 14.04
60 4 7.02
70 1 1.75

Desired Combat %
Value Frequency Frequency %
20 1 1.75
25 3 5.26
30 8 14.04
33 4 7.02
33.3 1 1.75
33.333 1 1.75
33.4 1 1.75
34 1 1.75
35 3 5.26
40 16 28.07
42.5 2 3.51
43 1 1.75
44 1 1.75
45 2 3.51
48 1 1.75
50 9 15.79
60 1 1.75
70 1 1.75

Desired Puzzle %
Value Frequency Frequency %
4 1 1.75
5 1 1.75
10 12 21.05
15 7 12.28
20 17 29.82
23 1 1.75
25 5 8.77
30 3 5.26
33 4 7.02
33.3 2 3.51
33.333 1 1.75
34 1 1.75
35 1 1.75
40 1 1.75

[Nulk]

That is interesting reading... so some where around the 40/40/20 split then, an equal mix of RP/action with a splattering of puzzles to keep the brain ticking over....

[tfoxsail]

Great survey! Thanks for sharing the results!

[zimores]

filled it out :)

[Manta78]

Nice survey indeed.

Filled it out as well.

Cheers

[Black Hammer]

I didn't fill it out, because I'm burned out on D&D, but it's a really good idea. Another sort-of-survey I've been trying to figure out a way to do is actively measure interest in some less common systems, so rather than having to go make a post saying "Anyone want to play X? Or Y? Or maybe Z? Anybody alive in here?" you'd have at least a basic sense of what might get enough players to work.

Was thinking a sort of monthly poll of what people want to play might work.

[Phantom Mouse]

Filled it out.